258 MR. G. R. GRAY ON A NEW PUCRASIA. [June 14, 
The baleen of the right side of the mouth has been preserved in 
a nearly complete state. Of the larger or external row of plates 285 
are present; but, as some are wanting at the posterior extremity of 
the series, their whole number may be estimated at about 300. The 
largest of these plates measure 83" in length, and 2" in breadth at 
the base. Their colour is a yellowish white ; when fresh, they are 
said to have had a pinkish tinge. Some scattered longitudinal fine 
black streaks, collected chiefly at two points, one a short distance 
from the base and the other about 3 inches higher, give rise to two 
darker transverse bands, visible on each individual plate, and more 
distinctly along the whole series. The general light colour of the 
whole of the baleen appears to be a distinctive character of this 
species ; in all the larger Fin-Whales it is wholly or partially black 
or brown. 
June 14, 1864. 
George Busk, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
Professor R. Owen read a Memoir on the skeleton of the Great 
- Awk (Alcea impennis). Prof. Owen’s observations were principally 
founded on a specimen of the body of this bird disinterred from 
some guano-deposits on Funk or Penguin Island, on the coast of New- 
foundland, as related by Mr. Newton at a previous meeting of this 
Society *. 
This communication will be printed entire in the Society’s ‘ Trans- 
actions,’ with appropriate illustrations. 
The following papers were read :— 
1. On a New Species or PucrasiA FROM Cuina. By GEorGE 
Rospert Gray, F.L.S., etc. 
(Plate XX.) 
The British Museum has just received, through the kindness of 
the Hon. Sir Fred. W. A. Bruce, K.C.B., two specimens, male and 
female, of a species of Pucrasia. This bird, though noticed by Dr. 
Lamprey in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ for 1862, 
p- 221, as “ another kind of Pheasant found in the Tien Tsin market,”’ 
which bears out the description of the Huplocamus pucrasia of the 
Naturalist’s Library,” was not inserted by Mr. Swinhoe in his “ Cata- 
logue of the Birds of China,” published in the ‘ Proceedings of the . 
Zoological Society’ for 1863. It is thought, therefore, that the de- 
scription of the present examples may be acceptable to the Society, 
* See P. Z. S, 1863, p. 435. 
